Reference oscillator frequency stabilization
Method for stabilizing the frequency of a MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) reference oscillator, and a MEMS reference oscillator, wherein the method comprises following steps: using two or more MEMS components, wherein each MEMS component is characterized by a set of properties, and selectively combining the desired properties from the MEMS components.
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The present invention relates to a method for stabilizing the frequency of a reference oscillator. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for stabilizing the frequency of a MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) reference oscillator. The present invention also relates to a reference oscillator, especially a MEMS reference oscillator.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONReference oscillators are used as precise and stable frequency references in innumerable applications. They are used for obtaining a precise frequency reference and/or for obtaining a precise time reference. Such reference oscillators are needed, e.g., in devices which communicate using radiofrequency links, or otherwise use precisely defined frequencies. Reference oscillators are also needed in precise clocks and timing circuits.
The critical requirements for a reference oscillator are (1) high long-term stability (low drift/ageing), (2) low phase noise, (3) high thermal stability, e.g., low thermal coefficient, and (4) precise value for the reference oscillator frequency. In most high-volume applications, the following features are also important: (5) small size, (6) low power consumption, (7) high integration level between the resonator, the oscillator electronics, and the device package, and (8) low cost.
Quartz crystals are typically used for resonators in high-quality reference oscillators. Disadvantages of these crystals are their large size and incompatibility for monolithic integration with electronics.
Modern micromachining makes it possible to fabricate miniaturized mechanical resonators (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems=MEMS) with resonance frequencies ranging from several kHz up to GHz range. Examples of such microresonators based on surface or bulk micromachining of silicon are presented in H. J. De Los Santos, “RF MEMS Circuit Design for Wireless Communications”, Artech House, Boston/London, 2002. The advantages of microresonators include small size, low power consumption, and possibility for increased integration level between the resonator, the oscillator electronics, and the device package. Both monolithic integration and the system-on-chip approach are viable solutions for increasing the integration level of a reference oscillator. Monolithic integration of micromachined resonators and integrated circuits will facilitate also more complicated micro-electro-mechanical circuits.
There exist, however, several complications related to realizing a MEMS-based reference oscillator. (i) A reference-quality long-term stability is challenging to achieve using microsize resonators, in particular when a good phase noise performance is to be obtained from the same device. (ii) The thermal coefficient for the resonance frequency of the microresonators is typically in the range [−10, −40] ppm/K and are thus far too large for typical reference oscillator applications. (Proposed solutions to temperature dependence compensation include adjusting the bias voltage, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,133, MacDonald et al, adjusting the width of the capacitive coupling gap, see for example U.S. Patent Application 20030051550, Nguyen and Hsu, or utilizing mechanical stress, see for example U.S. Patent Application 20020069701, Hsu and Nguyen.) (iii) The small dimensions in microsize resonators make considerable challenges to fabrication tolerances to obtain precise resonator frequencies. In summary, demonstrating a MEMS reference oscillator having simultaneously all the desired properties (1)-(4), has turned out to be difficult.
THE PRESENT INVENTIONIt is therefore an object of the present invention to eliminate the disadvantages of the prior art and to provide a MEMS reference oscillator having improved properties (1)-(4).
It is further an object of the present invention to provide a method to stabilize the frequency of an oscillator based on MEMS components using techniques that can be adopted to fabrication of highly integrated, low-phase-noise reference oscillators.
The present Invention provides a solution to the disadvantages of the prior art by a selective combination of the desired properties from two or more MEMS components.
Each MEMS oscillator component is characterized by a set of properties, typically distinct from each other. A combiner or alike synthesizes the desired output by a selective combination of the properties in the components. To accomplish this, the combiner can use several techniques, for example processing of the oscillators' signals, feedback adjustment of the two oscillators and utilizing additional inputs such as the measured temperature of the oscillators.
Characteristic features of the present invention are in detail presented in the enclosed claims.
The use of two or more MEMS components is technologically feasible and rational solution since micromachining and IC-processes are intrinsically scalable to the fabrication of several components in parallel and combination of their operation.
The foregoing, and additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention, taken in conjunction with accompanying drawings, in which:
The Invention is illustrated schematically in
Method 1
In Method 1, illustrated in
Operation of the component providing the long-term stability is based on stable electrical or electromechanical properties. In Realization A (
The good phase noise requirement for the tunable oscillator can be realized using several micromachined resonator types, in particular the relaxed long-term stability requirement allows the use of flexural mode resonators in addition to bulk acoustic wave resonators. In case it becomes difficult to obtain a sufficient tunability range for temperature compensation using a single resonator, one can utilize a bank of two or more oscillators based on resonators that have slightly different resonance frequencies to reduce the tunability range as shown in
Three realizations of the frequency meter will be described:
In Realization A (
The frequency of the tunable osc TUNOSC30 is compared with the BAW OSC frequency, e.g., using a mixer followed by a low-pass filter (LPF30) and a frequency counter COUNTER30 and the detected frequency difference is processed (“LOGIC30”) to create a tuning voltage for adjusting the tunable osc TUNOSC30 to the correct frequency. It is important to note that the counted frequency difference remains not constant but depends on the temperature since BAWOSC30 frequency is a function of the temperature. However, since the BAWOSC frequency is an accurately known and stable function of the temperature, it can be used as a frequency reference by measuring the temperature (“T-MEAS30”). The temperature-induced reference offset is then taken into account in the circuitry creating the tuning voltage.
In Realization B (
It is important to note that Realization A is based on the standing wave operation, while Realization B is based on a propagating bulk wave. The advantage in standing wave operation is the ability to utilize the resonance for lowering the impedance level and reduce power consumption. On the other hand, the propagating wave structure is less susceptible to endpoint effects (e.g. contamination changing the acoustic length in standing wave operation).
In Realization C (
2πf0 CR=1 (1)
The frequency to be measured is f=f0+Δf and Δf/f0 is small. It is straightforward to show that
VA−VB≈−jVin−(Δf/f0)Vin (2)
where terms of the order of (Δf/f0)2 or higher have been neglected, Vin is the input signal and j stands for the imaginary unit. By measuring the component of the voltage difference VA−VB. that is in the same phase as Vin one can determine the deviation of the input frequency from f0.
The long-term stability of the resonance frequency for the bulk acoustic wave resonators results basically from the fact that the characteristic frequency determining dimension (acoustic length L) is a large dimension for a micromechanical resonator, typically a quarter wavelength corresponds to several hundred micrometers for at 13 MHz. In comparison, for a typical beam-type flexural mode resonator, the fundamental resonance frequency is determined by the thickness, or by the width of the beam which is typically a few micrometers (two orders of magnitude less) at the same frequency. The large frequency determining dimension of BAW resonators is also beneficial in reducing the frequency offsets due to fabrication tolerances.
Another important application for the frequency tuning circuit is the compensation for the variations of parameters of the components that occur during manufacturing. The device-to-device variation concerns especially the absolute value of the resonance frequency. Calibration data of an individual reference oscillator can be stored to a memory circuit, which is part of the oscillator circuitry, and these data can be used to set the output frequency precisely at the desired value.
The TUNABLE OSC in
The frequency tuning can be accomplished, e.g., by a standard electrostatic tuning (adjusting the bias voltage) of the micromechanical resonator or using a component creating an adjustable reactance (e.g. varactor). There are flexural mode silicon resonators with resonance frequencies ranging from 3 to 45 MHz. The resonance frequencies could be shifted by 1% by applying a suitable bias voltage. This tuning range was significantly larger than the 0.15% change in the resonance frequency upon temperature variation from 25° C. to 85° C. If obtaining large enough tunability range poses a problem, a bank of two or more resonators TUNABLE OSC 1 . . . TUNABLE OSC n with slightly different mechanical resonance frequency can be used to narrow the required tunability range for a single resonator (
Method 2
In Method 2, illustrated in
In Method 2 (
Further improvement in the image-frequency rejection can be obtained by filtering the reference oscillator output signal by using a filter based on a resonator with a center frequency near the reference oscillator frequency fref. The filter is designed so that its mechanical quality factor is only moderate so that the variation in its center frequency, Δf0, including possible drifts during the designed life time of filter, is smaller than f0/Q. The filter can be realized as a high-order filter comprising of several micromechanical resonators to further improve the frequency selectivity. All the micromachined components required in Method 1 and 2 can be manufactured e.g. using a process based on deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Another fabrication process that could be employed to fabricate bulk-acoustical mode resonators is the described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,719,073 (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/312,797), entitled “Microstructures and Single Mask, Single-Crystal Process for Fabrication Thereof,” of Shaw et al, filed Sep. 27, 1994. Functionally similar components can be also manufactured by several other processes that are based on using either single-crystal silicon or polycrystalline silicon.
An advantageous MEMS component for reference oscillator according to the present invention is depicted in
It is obvious to the person skilled in the art that different embodiments of the invention are not limited to the example described above, but that they may be varied within the scope of the enclosed claims.
Claims
1. MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) reference oscillator with stabilized frequency, characterised in that the oscillator comprises:
- two or more MEMS components, wherein each MEMS component is characterized by a set of properties, and
- a combiner for selective combination of the desired properties from the MEMS components,
- characterised in that at least one of the components is a micromechanical bulk acoustic mode silicon resonator with a square plate and electrodes for capacitive coupling arranged on all sides of the plate, wherein the vibration mode is characterised as a 2-D plate expansion that preserves the original square shape.
2. MEMS reference oscillator according to claim 1, characterised in that the type of at least one MEMS component is different from the types of the other MEMS components.
3. MEMS reference oscillator according to claim 1, characterised in that the components are identical but their control parameters, including bias voltage, are different.
4. MEMS reference oscillator according to claim 1, characterised in that the oscillator utilizes a stable frequency reference based on an bulk acoustic mode oscillator and a frequency meter operation based on comparing the frequency created by the bulk acoustic wave oscillator with the output frequency of the oscillator.
5. MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) reference oscillator with stabilized frequency, characterised in that the oscillator comprises: characterised in that the oscillator utilizes a stable frequency reference obtained by measuring the phase difference of propagating bulk acoustical wave in a micromachined sound-wave guide at fixed positions.
- two or more MEMS components, wherein each MEMS component is characterized by a set of properties, and
- a combiner for selective combination of the desired properties from the MEMS components,
6. MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) reference oscillator with stabilized frequency, characterised in that the oscillator comprises:
- two or more MEMS components, wherein each MEMS component is characterized by a set of properties, and
- a combiner for selective combination of the desired properties from the MEMS components,
- characterised in that the oscillator utilizes a frequency meter based on stable capacitors and stable micromachined thin-film resistors that are used to create the Wien oscillator topology.
7. MEMS (Micro Electra Mechanical Systems) reference oscillator with stabilized frequency, characterised in that the oscillator comprises:
- two or more MEMS components, wherein each MEMS component is characterized by a set of properties, and
- a combiner for selective combination of the desired properties from the MEMS components,
- characterised in that a capacitor-resistor network, that is part of the Wien oscillator circuit, is used as a frequency meter in which the capacitors and resistors form a bridge circuit the balance of which depends on the frequency of the incoming frequency.
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Type: Grant
Filed: Feb 2, 2005
Date of Patent: Jul 24, 2007
Patent Publication Number: 20050184822
Assignee: Nokia Corporation (Espoo)
Inventors: Tomi Mattila (Espoo), Aarne Oja (Espoo), Olli Jaakkola (Helsinki), Heikki Seppā (Helsinki)
Primary Examiner: Robert Pascal
Assistant Examiner: Levi Gannon
Attorney: Harrington & Smith, PC
Application Number: 11/050,142
International Classification: H03L 7/00 (20060101);